Primary Tips

Primary Tips

With very young learners much of what they do in the classroom revolves around them. Before school they are often the centre of ‘their’ universe so starting school can sometimes be a bit of a shock. This activity is suitable for language assistants and teachers.

Coming into a primary English lesson should always be about having fun. The fun should obviously always be grounded in learning, but it's important to always remember the enjoyment factor. This is why it's good to base your lessons on subjects that children will automatically relate to. These activities are suitable for language assistants and teachers.

This is a primary tip that helps you exploit the lesson plan Colours – What is pink? from the French CIEP (Centre International d’Etudes Pédagogiques) website, designed to assist foreign assistants teaching in France. It can be used by all assistants as the worksheets are in English. The lesson plan is inspired by the famous poem What is Pink? by Christina Rossetti.

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This can be done over a series of lessons as part of an ongoing project, dedicating each lesson to a different insect, or otherwise as one lesson. Children love squeamish subjects so you may find that they want you to extend what you originally planned to do.

Children love units connected with animals and farm animals can provide lots of fun opportunities to practise sounds and phonics. These activities are suitable for language assistants as well as teachers.

This lesson has some fun activities and language learning tasks based around the theme of Halloween. The activities include singing songs and making Halloween decorations. The activities are suitable for language assistants as well as for teachers.

This is the first in a two part series. Here you have a few ideas on how to review days of the week, months of the year and dates while allowing children to personalise the lesson and allowing you to give them some invaluable cultural input. These activities are designed to be used by language assistants as well as teachers.